“
I don’t think that I’ve been in love as such
Although I liked a few folk pretty well
Love must be vaster than my smiles or touch
for brave men died and empires rose and fell
For love, girls follow boys to foreign lands
and men have followed women into hell
In plays and poems someone understands
there’s something makes us more than blood and bone
and more than biological demands
For me love’s like the wind, unseen, unknown
I see the trees are bending where it’s been
I know that it leaves wreckage where it’s blown
I really don’t know what "I love you" means
I think it means "don’t leave me here alone
”
”
Neil Gaiman (Adventures in the Dream Trade)
“
Love is a fire that burns unseen,
a wound that aches yet isn’t felt,
an always discontent contentment,
a pain that rages without hurting,
a longing for nothing but to long,
a loneliness in the midst of people,
a never feeling pleased when pleased,
a passion that gains when lost in thought.
It’s being enslaved of your own free will;
it’s counting your defeat a victory;
it’s staying loyal to your killer.
But if it’s so self-contradictory,
how can Love, when Love chooses,
bring human hearts into sympathy?
”
”
Luís de Camões (Sonetos de Camões)
“
I'd rather be not the light in your life
The bright day might make me obscure
I'd rather be the cold darkness
For it remains, unseen, uncertain and unsure
”
”
Sanhita Baruah (The Farewell and other poems)
“
Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
Thus unlamented let me die;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie.
”
”
Alexander Pope (Poems Collected)
“
A Poet is a nightingale who sits in darkness, and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds; his auditors are as men entranced by the melody of an unseen musician, who feel that they are moved and softened, yet know not whence or why.
”
”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays)
“
O friend unseen, unborn, unknown,
Student of our sweet English tongue,
Read out my words at night, alone:
I was a poet, I was young.
Since I can never see your face,
And never shake you by the hand,
I send my soul through time and space
To greet you. You will understand.
”
”
James Elroy Flecker
“
I sent my words out onto the wind
to paths unseen and parts unknown
in hopes people will enjoy
this book of poetic words I've sown
”
”
Charles Johnson (Love Poems and More From the Heart and Soul of Man)
“
If you want what visible reality
can give, you're an employee.
If you want the unseen world,
you're not living your truth.
Both wishes are foolish,
but you'll be forgiven for forgetting
that what you really want is
love's confusing joy.
”
”
Coleman Barks
“
Love is a fire that burns unseen,
A wound that aches yet isn't felt,
An always discontent contentment,
A pain that rages without hurting,
A longing for nothing but to long,
A loneliness in the midst of people,
A never feeling pleased when pleased,
A passion that gains when lost in thought.
”
”
Luís de Camões
“
Songs of myself
Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul.
Lack one lacks both, and the unseen is proved by the seen,
Till that becomes unseen and receives proof in its turn.
”
”
Walt Whitman
“
...now open your mind by closing your eyes
see the unseen world within you which lies
From the poem 'The Unseen World
”
”
Munia Khan (Beyond The Vernal Mind)
“
I now know that to be loved as child means to be watched. In high school, I loved when the teacher turned the lights off. A moment to feel loved and unseen at once. I understand now. We can't be loved when the lights are off.
”
”
Victoria Chang (Obit)
“
Poetry is inspired by the elements of random thoughts, an overflow of gazing at the unseen.
”
”
Michael Bassey Johnson
“
My Creed
To live as gently as I can;
To be, no matter where, a man;
To take what comes of good or ill
And cling to faith and honor still;
To do my best, and let that stand
The record of my brain and hand;
And then, should failure come to me,
Still work and hope for victory.
To have no secret place wherein
I stoop unseen to shame or sin;
To be the same when I'm alone
As when my every deed is known;
To live undaunted, unafraid
Of any step that I have made;
To be without pretense or sham
Exactly what men think I am.
To leave some simple mark behind
To keep my having lived in mind;
If enmity to aught I show,
To be an honest, generous foe,
To play my little part, nor whine
That greater honors are not mine.
This, I believe, is all I need
For my philosophy and creed.
”
”
Edgar A. Guest
“
Solitude
Happy the man, whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air
In his own ground.
Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire;
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
In winter fire.
Blest, who can unconcern’dly find
Hours, days, and years, slide soft away
In health of body, peace of mind,
Quiet by day.
Sound sleep by night; study and ease
Together mix’d, sweet recreation,
And innocence, which most does please
With meditation.
Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
Thus unlamented let me die;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie.
”
”
Alexander Pope
“
Poetry, in its own way, is a carrier of the sparks, because it too comes out of silence, seeking connection with unseen others.
”
”
Adrienne Rich (What is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics)
“
At times poetry is the vertigo of bodies and the vertigo of speech and the vertigo of death;
the walk with eyes closed along the edge of the cliff, and the verbena in submarine gardens;
the laughter that sets on fire the rules and the holy commandments;
the descent of parachuting words onto the sands of the page;
the despair that boards a paper boat and crosses,
for forty nights and forty days, the night-sorrow sea and the day-sorrow desert;
the idolatry of the self and the desecration of the self and the dissipation of the self;
the beheading of epithets, the burial of mirrors;
the recollection of pronouns freshly cut in the
garden of Epicurus, and the garden of Netzahualcoyotl;
the flute solo on the terrace of memory and the dance of flames in the cave of thought;
the migrations of millions of verbs, wings and claws, seeds and hands;
the nouns, bony and full of roots, planted on the waves of language;
the love unseen and the love unheard and the love unsaid: the love in love.
”
”
Octavio Paz
“
The Fever Bird
The fever bird sand out last night.
I could not sleep, try as I might.
My brain was split, my spirit raw.
I looked into the garden, saw
The shadow of the amaltas
Shake slightly on the moonlit grass
Unseen, the bird cried out its grief,
Its lunacy, without relief:
Three notes repeated closer, higher,
Soaring, then sinking down like fire
Only to breathe the night and soar,
As crazed, as desperate, as before.
I shivered in the midnight heat
And smelt the sweat that soaked my sheet.
And now tonight I hear again
The call that skewers though my brain,
The call, the brain-sick triple note--
A cone of pain stuck inits throat.
I am so tired I could weep.
Mad bird, for God's sake let me sleep
Why do you cry like one possessed?
When will you rest? When will you rest?
Why wait each night till all but I
Lie sleeping in the house, then cry?
Why do you scream into my ear
What no one else but I can hear?
”
”
Vikram Seth (A Suitable Boy (A Bridge of Leaves, #1))
“
STARS AND DANDELIONS
Deep in the blue sky,
like pebbles at the bottom of the sea,
lie the stars unseen in daylight
until night comes.
You can't see them, but they are there.
Unseen things are still there.
The withered, seedless dandelions
hidden in the cracks of the roof tile
wait silently for spring,
their strong roots unseen.
You can't see them, but they are there.
Unseen things are still there.
”
”
Misuzu Kaneko (Are You an Echo?: The Lost Poetry of Misuzu Kaneko)
“
The ocean heals scars seen and unseen.
”
”
Christina Strigas (A Book of Chrissyisms)
“
My Spirit radiates brighter than a diamond or rainbow...This beauty unseen. Only those with true beauty know.
”
”
Cali Willette (Fractures of Gold)
“
Burn, glare, old sun, so long unseen,
That time may find its sound again, and cleanse
Whatever it is that a wound remembers
After the healing ends.
”
”
Weldon Kees (The Collected Poems of Weldon Kees)
“
They soar, they are somewhere mid-flight,
The words of love and liberation
And I'm succumbing to stage-fright,
My lips – ice cold in trepidation.
But soon, where birches, thin and humble,
Caress the windows with their leaves, -
The voice of the unseen will rumble
And roses will be tied in wreaths.
”
”
Anna Akhmatova (White Flock)
“
Take us to the in-between,
Where earth meets sky, and wake meets dream.
And time rushes by, unseen.
Take us to the infinite night,
Where up is down, and left is right,
And dark vanquishes light.
”
”
S.L. Stacy (Relapse (Reborn #2))
“
UP
You wake up filled with dread.
There seems no reason for it.
Morning light sifts through the window,
there is birdsong,
you can't get out of bed.
It's something about the crumpled sheets
hanging over the edge like jungle
foliage, the terry slippers gaping
their dark pink mouths for your feet,
the unseen breakfast--some of it
in the refrigerator you do not dare
to open--you will not dare to eat.
What prevents you? The future. The future tense,
immense as outer space.
You could get lost there.
No. Nothing so simple. The past, its density
and drowned events pressing you down,
like sea water, like gelatin
filling your lungs instead of air.
Forget all that and let's get up.
Try moving your arm.
Try moving your head.
Pretend the house is on fire
and you must run or burn.
No, that one's useless.
It's never worked before.
Where is it coming form, this echo,
this huge No that surrounds you,
silent as the folds of the yellow
curtains, mute as the cheerful
Mexican bowl with its cargo
of mummified flowers?
(You chose the colours of the sun,
not the dried neutrals of shadow.
God knows you've tried.)
Now here's a good one:
you're lying on your deathbed.
You have one hour to live.
Who is it, exactly, you have needed
all these years to forgive?
”
”
Margaret Atwood (Morning In The Burned House: Poems)
“
Endymion
The rising moon has hid the stars;
Her level rays, like golden bars,
Lie on the landscape green,
With shadows brown between.
And silver white the river gleams,
As if Diana, in her dreams,
Had dropt her silver bow
Upon the meadows low.
On such a tranquil night as this,
She woke Endymion with a kiss,
When, sleeping in the grove,
He dreamed not of her love.
Like Dian's kiss, unasked, unsought,
Love gives itself, but is not bought;
Nor voice, nor sound betrays
Its deep, impassioned gaze.
It comes,--the beautiful, the free,
The crown of all humanity,--
In silence and alone
To seek the elected one.
It lifts the boughs, whose shadows deep
Are Life's oblivion, the soul's sleep,
And kisses the closed eyes
Of him, who slumbering lies.
O weary hearts! O slumbering eyes!
O drooping souls, whose destinies
Are fraught with fear and pain,
Ye shall be loved again!
No one is so accursed by fate,
No one so utterly desolate,
But some heart, though unknown,
Responds unto his own.
Responds,--as if with unseen wings,
An angel touched its quivering strings;
And whispers, in its song,
"Where hast thou stayed so long?
”
”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Ballads and Other Poems)
“
Justice Denied
Thousands of women, probably more
I cannot reach them behind justice doors
Many stay silent, barred just like me.
Haunted by demons, faces unseen.
Still by the hundreds, they continue to serve
Duty and country, active and reserve.
Thankless, forgotten through America's wars
Scarred like their brethren, treated as foes.
Volunteered to go to the shores.
Died like the others, shamed to the core.
Where is the dignity, long since denied?
Lost in the White House of Justice Denied
Women in service since beginning of time
Often they're treated like victims in crime.
Where is their voice, silence throughout the years?
It's dead in the Senate and House, with their tears!
”
”
Diane Chamberlain (Conduct Unbecoming: Rape, Torture, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from Military Commanders)
“
A poet is a nightingale who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds; his auditors are as men entranced by the melody of an unseen musician, who feel that they are moved and softened, yet know not whence or why.
”
”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays)
“
Poetry unlocks that unseen world and that unheard language to the real world.
”
”
Euginia Herlihy
“
Grey is the price
of neighboring with eagles, of knowing
a mountain's vast presence, seen or unseen.
”
”
Denise Levertov (Evening Train: Poetry (A New Directions Paperbook))
“
The most powerful poetry is birthed through cracks in history, through what is broken and unseen.
”
”
Joy Harjo (Catching the Light (Why I Write))
“
Butterfly Kisses
Aged imperfections
stitched upon my face
years and years of wisdom
earned by His holy grace.
Quiet solitude in a humble home
all the family scattered now
like nomads do they roam.
Then a gift
sent from above
a memory
pure and tangible
wrapped in innocence and
unquestioning love.
A butterfly kiss
lands gently upon my cheek
from an unseen child
a kiss most sweet.
Heaven grants grace
and tears follow
as youth revisits
this empty hollow.
”
”
Muse (Enigmatic Evolution)
“
Obey, obey, obey
-obey what?
My body catching this wind is obeying
the pulse of the breathtaking Divine.
You, canoeing those rapids, are breaking
into the spray of larger, unseen Waves.
”
”
Mohja Kahf (E-mails from Scheherazad (Contemporary Poetry Series))
“
In fact, unconscious scanning goes on all the time. It seems more than ever that what we know as the visionary or poetic mode is our response via the unconscious senses to what is really there in the environment. We are not trying to 'explain it away': it is rather that we symbolize this kind of awareness.
”
”
Peter Redgrove (The Black Goddess and the Unseen Real: Our Uncommon Senses and Their Common Sense)
“
The songs of Japan take the human heart as their seed and flourish as myriad leaves of words. As long as they are alive to this world, the cares and deeds of men and women are endless, so they speak of things they hear and see, giving words to the feelings in their hearts. Hearing the cries of the warbler among the blossoms or the calls of the frog that lives in the waters, how can we doubt that every living creature sing its song? Not using force, it moves heaven and earth, makes even the unseen spirits and gods feel pity, smoothes the bonds between man and woman, and consoles the hearts of fierce warriors-such a thing is poetry.
”
”
Ki no Tsurayuki (Anthology of Japanese Literature: From the Earliest Era to the Mid-Nineteenth Century)
“
Nutt was technically an expert on love poetry throughout the ages and had discussed it at length with Miss Healstether, the castle librarian. He had also tried to discuss it with Ladyship, but she had laughed and said it was frivolity, although quite helpful as a tutorial on the use of vocabulary, scansion, rhythm and affect as a means to an end, to wit getting a young lady to take all her clothes off. At that particular point, Nutt had not really understood what she meant. It sounded like some sort of conjuring trick.
”
”
Terry Pratchett (Unseen Academicals (Discworld, #37))
“
You are funny like a kid and awesome like a princess
Unseen like an angel, like the morning sunshine…
Kindness like a river and highness like a mountain,
In the middle of the Rheine, the cute face and sweet lips …
(La la la la, La la , mmmm , mm …)
Keep the lovely smile, in your juicy icy eyes
Open the heaven for my eyes, forever angel voice
Never angry never harsh, never mad never marsh
Dear or darling, either diamond or dime,
Overall the dream of the world
”
”
M.F. Moonzajer (A moment with God ; Poetry)
“
You air that serves me with breath to speak!
You objects that call from diffusion my meanings and give them shape!
You light that wraps me and all things in delicate equable showers!
You paths worn in the irregular hollows by the roadsides!
I believe you are latent with unseen existences, you are so dear to me.
”
”
Walt Whitman
“
Ходех на дълги разходки,
само за едно зажаднял:
за светкавица,
за промяна,
за тебе.
”
”
Adam Zagajewski (Unseen Hand: Poems)
“
Once,
I did hear him,
he did wash the world,
unseen, nightlong,
real.
One and unending,
annihilated,
I'ed.
Light was. Salvation
”
”
Paul Celan (Breathturn into Timestead: The Collected Later Poetry)
“
Thus let me live, unseen, unknown,
Thus unlamented let me die,
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie.
”
”
Alexander Pope
“
If your hard work feels unseen, stop making it look so effortless.
”
”
Melody Godfred (Self Love Poetry: For Thinkers & Feelers)
“
What is your hidden story?
What trials don’t you tell?
What inner woe and wounds
Do you keep buried oh so well?
What are the shielded secrets
That gloss your weary eyes?
What unseen dread and pain
Do you keep shrouded in disguise?
Blind to your shackled burdens,
I cannot see your fears.
But written on your soul
I sense a story penned in tears.
I’d pay the price to read it,
To learn whereby you weep.
To comprehend, I swear
Your burning secrets I would keep.
What is your hidden story?
What trials don’t you tell?
What cost in woe and wounds
For me to know you oh so well?
”
”
Richelle E. Goodrich (Being Bold: Quotes, Poetry, & Motivations for Every Day of the Year)
“
Because this painting has never been restored there is a heightened poignance to it somehow; it doesn’t have the feeling of unassailable permanence that paintings in museums do.
There is a small crack in the lower left, and a little of the priming between the wooden panel and the oil emulsions of paint has been bared. A bit of abrasion shows, at the rim of a bowl of berries, evidence of time’s power even over this—which, paradoxically, only seems to increase its poetry, its deep resonance. If you could see the notes of a cello, when the bow draws slowly and deeply across its strings, and those resonant reverberations which of all instruments’ are nearest to the sound of the human voice emerge—no, the wrong verb, they seem to come into being all at once, to surround us, suddenly, with presence—if that were made visible, that would be the poetry of Osias Beert.
But the still life resides in absolute silence.
Portraits often seem pregnant with speech, or as if their subjects have just finished saying something, or will soon speak the thoughts that inform their faces, the thoughts we’re invited to read. Landscapes are full of presences, visible or unseen; soon nymphs or a stag or a band of hikers will make themselves heard.
But no word will ever be spoken here, among the flowers and snails, the solid and dependable apples, this heap of rumpled books, this pewter plate on which a few opened oysters lie, giving up their silver.
These are resolutely still, immutable, poised for a forward movement that will never occur. The brink upon which still life rests is the brink of time, the edge of something about to happen. Everything that we know crosses this lip, over and over, like water over the edge of a fall, as what might happen does, as any of the endless variations of what might come true does so, and things fall into being, tumble through the progression of existing in time.
Painting creates silence. You could examine the objects themselves, the actors in a Dutch still life—this knobbed beaker, this pewter salver, this knife—and, lovely as all antique utilitarian objects are, they are not, would not be, poised on the edge these same things inhabit when they are represented.
These things exist—if indeed they are still around at all—in time. It is the act of painting them that makes them perennially poised, an emergent truth about to be articulated, a word waiting to be spoken. Single word that has been forming all these years in the light on the knife’s pearl handle, in the drops of moisture on nearly translucent grapes: At the end of time, will that word be said?
”
”
Mark Doty (Still Life with Oysters and Lemon: On Objects and Intimacy)
“
His (Samuel Coleridge) dark senses were constantly in play, the frustration of them bringing illness. Weather and organic nature combined in a synaesthetic multi-media event, and this was the ground of all perception before it was divded up in daily living: the Primary Imagination giving way to the Secondary. Poetry was forever seeking a conscious return to this state, which existed all the time, whether he knew it or not.
”
”
Peter Redgrove (The Black Goddess and the Unseen Real: Our Uncommon Senses and Their Common Sense)
“
Soul of all souls, life of all life—you are That.
Seen and unseen, moving and unmoving—you are That.
The road that leads to the City is endless;
Go without head or feet
and you’ll already be there.
What else could you be?—you are That.
”
”
Rumi (Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi) (Rumi: In the Arms of the Beloved)
“
Tawhid, Unity in its deepest sense, is the first principle of Religion, which impels the Sufis to claim that all, everything, is He. This is true not merely at that spiritual stage of Intuition in which the seer and Seen are said to be one, but even at the beginning of the Path. For the aspirant himself is said to be the very object of aspiration. Like a thief who mingles unseen with the crowd that pursues him, the obiect of our search is "closer to us than our jugular vein" (L, 16). As Ahmad Ghazali put it, "We drown in an endless ocean, yet our lips are parched with thirst.
”
”
Peter Lamborn Wilson (The Drunken Universe: An Anthology of Persian Sufi Poetry)
“
Crowded places, I shunned them as noises too rude
And fled to the silence of sweet solitude.
Where the flower in green darkness buds, blossoms, and fades,
Unseen of all shepherds and flower-loving maids—
The hermit bees find them but once and away.
There I'll bury alive and in silence decay.
”
”
John Clare (Poems Chiefly from Manuscript)
“
All my anxiety is separation anxiety.
I want to believe you are here with me,
But the bed is bigger and the trash
Overflows. Someone righteous should
Take out my garbage. I am so many odd
And enviable things. Righteous is not
One of them. I’d rather a man to avoid
Than a man to imagine in a realm
Unseen, though even the doctor who
Shut your eyes swears you’re somewhere
As close as breath. Mine, not yours.
You don’t have breath. You got
Heaven. That’s supposed to be my
Haven. I want you to tell me it sparkles
There. I want you to tell me anything
Again and again while I turn you over
To quiet you or to wake and remind you
I can’t be expected to clean up after a man.
”
”
Jericho Brown (The Tradition)
“
Hanging conversations,
uncertain observations,
incomplete imaginations.
Unsent text messages,
unreplied mails,
undecided calls,
unattended places.
Unsettled pledges,
distant searches.
Some underutilized wages,
some unseen dreams,
sitting on dried leaves,
believing the unbelieved…
bidding adieu,
to the accepted,
how much she wanted to
do,
what was,
detested!
”
”
Jasleen Kaur Gumber (Ginger and Honey: An unusual free verse poetry collection)
“
I'm attracted to ellipsis, to the unsaid, to suggestion, to eloquent, deliberate silence. The unsaid, for me, exerts great power: often I wish an entire poem could be made in this vocabulary. It is analogous to the unseen; for example, to the power of ruins, to works of art either damaged or incomplete. Such works inevitably allude to larger contexts they haunt because they are not whole, though wholeness is implied. . .
”
”
Louise Glück (Proofs & Theories: Essays on Poetry)
“
I am looking at this shiny star tonight,
Wishing wishes could come true...
I wonder if by any chance,
He sees the same star too!!
The overwhelming darkness tickles the lonely heart tonight,
I wonder if he sees the star I am watching,
May be he would stand within its light!
There are many miles between us,
but still our souls can meet...
At this point when we look at this star together,
May be our hearts could find their beat!
Don't you feel the need for someone to come,
Into your life...
I am wishing for the same thing,
As I watch this star tonight!
This gentle light on my face,
Cheers and comforts and holds me tight...
I wonder if by some chance,
I find you holding me with love and sitting by my side!
But this remains a wish as he is still unseen and unknown,
I wonder who he might be, to whom I would be prone!
A hopeless or born romantic,
Everyone is searching for true love,
Wishing wishes in the darkness,
To this magical star that hangs above!
”
”
Anamika Mishra
“
Publishing a book,
Watching its ways
Force me to look
At a screen for days
"Be still, be still",
My heart screams for life
But I must check its sales,
It's reviews, its likes.
Another Instagram poet
Who's dying
And doesn't know it,
Untying an underlying
Knot of desire
To be liked and admired
For people to love what transpires
From my mind, but I'm tired
Of the social machine
Producing my insecurity
Hoping someone will follow me
And like all my poetry
From this point forth, find me nowhere,
Socially unseen,
Just on the back porch, without a care
And without a screen
”
”
Eric Overby (Senses)
“
Juliet and Romeo
Awake the scene, a twilight chamber’d dream,
Two angels both alike in dignity:
One imaged misadventure on the screen;
The second struck by moonlight’s alchemy.
A pair of star-crossed lovers spends their night;
He in deed dreams such a sight as she,
Swing crystal scales to crispest fair delight.
In his eyes her merry fragrant dance: she
Civil thoughts and civil music meet; on
Fair Lansdowne Street where love lays its scene,
Romeo and Juliet did greet; within
Their airy eyes on hopes and thoughts unseen.
The curtain lifts on this sweet poem with woe,
For love to find Juliet and her Romeo.
”
”
Tiger Lewis (Under the Sun)
“
Though at some point your daughter's desire may drive her, like the Tall Girl speaking beautiful words to her short, unseen lover, to read the poems of thirteenth century, ecstatic Persians out loud to the lonely walls of her bedroom in secret hopes that some lover would mistake her for God and come in through the eaves, it could be that somewhat later when the harshness of the jealous world has taken her tenderness apart, it will be her art, her poetry, her desire to be seen as someone who "sees" that will reassemble her into a real person with a grief-tempered joy in one eye and a fierce compassion in the other.
”
”
Martin Prechtel (The Disobedience of the Daughter of the Sun: A Mayan Tale of Ecstasy, Time, and Finding One's True Form)
“
Sonnet XII: There is a Meetinghouse across the wold
There is a Meetinghouse across the wold
Near shaded churchyard where pine breezes sigh;
Such sacred mem'ries gently here unfold
Of rustic folk whom 'neath the yew trees lie.
Engraved on stones now crum'ling in the earth,
Of souls asleep for o'er a hundred years,
Foretell unceasing cycles—Death and Birth
That yew tree nods and weeps her unseen tears.
But God shall guide us through the gloom of night
Victorious over grim reaper's blade,
As yet we grasp to see eternal light
Amidst life's fickle joys which here do fade.
Victims of Death by lusty scythe bannish'd
Triumphant wake to find nightmares vanish'd!
13 February, 2013
”
”
Timothy Salter (The Sonnets)
“
The flower-covered grave of the saint in the inner room could be seen dimly through the narrow doorway. In front of it was a wide vestibule where about two dozen people were seated in a circle. One of them was singing lustily some Persian verses, while others kept the time by clapping their hands; they joined in the refrain which was sung in chorus. Like rising tidal waves, the tempo of the singing was getting faster and faster, the clapping became more frantic and heads rolled from side to side, keeping time with the tempestuous melody. Eyes were closed and everyone was lost in the surging waves of emotion that seemed to flow out of the Sufistic poetry of the great Roomi. Then, to his amazement Anwar saw a man in the centre of the crowd open his eyes and stare vacantly. For a moment this man was silent, ominously silent and motionless in the midst of the emotional storm that raged around him. Then he was caught by a sudden frenzy, his whole body quivered and moved, beating time to the song which by now had reached a weird and frightening crescendo, faster and faster, louder and louder. The man's hands rose high in the air and as if clutching at an unseen rope, he raised himself and started to dance, wildly, ecstatically, tearing his clothes and pulling his hair, completely unselfconscious and unrestrained, oblivious of everything by some mysterious inner urge that demanded expression in this wild manner. And then the song died on the lips of the singer, the waves of emotion receded and in the ghostly silence that descended upon the assembly the standing figure of the man in the centre which looked inspired and hallowed a moment ago, suddenly appeared ridiculous and grotesque. For a few moments he stood as if poised for another outburst of frenzy. Then, deprived of the emotional support of the song, his knees sagged and he collapsed to the ground.
For several minutes Anwar was speechless; so great had the effect of this spectacle been on him. His pulse beat faster, his mind was in a whirl and, as the song stopped, he felt a gnawing emptiness in his bowels.
This then was Qawwali, the ecastatic ritual of the Persian Sufis.
”
”
Khwaja Ahmad Abbas (Inqilab)
“
The Book of Thel
II
"O little Cloud," the virgin said, "I charge thee tell to me,
Why thou complainest not when in one hour thou fade away:
Then we shall seek thee but not find; ah, Thel is like to Thee.
I pass away, yet I complain, and no one hears my voice."
The Cloud then shew'd his golden head & his bright form emerg'd,
Hovering and glittering on the air before the face of Thel.
"O virgin, know'st thou not our steeds drink of the golden springs
Where Luvah doth renew his horses? Look'st thou on my youth,
And fearest thou because I vanish and am seen no more,
Nothing remains? O maid, I tell thee, when I pass away,
It is to tenfold life, to love, to peace, and raptures holy:
Unseen descending, weigh my light wings upon balmy flowers,
And court the fair eyed dew, to take me to her shining tent:
The weeping virgin trembling kneels before the risen sun,
Till we arise link'd in a golden band, and never part,
But walk united, bearing food to all our tender flowers."
"Dost thou O little Cloud? I fear that I am not like thee;
For I walk through the vales of Har and smell the sweetest flowers,
But I feed not the little flowers; I hear the warbling birds,
But I feed not the warbling birds; they fly and seek their food;
But Thel delights in these no more, because I fade away,
And all shall say, 'Without a use this shining woman liv'd,
Or did she only live to be at death the food of worms?'"
The Cloud reclind upon his airy throne and answer'd thus:
"Then if thou art the food of worms, O virgin of the skies,
How great thy use, how great thy blessing! Every thing that lives
Lives not alone, nor for itself; fear not, and I will call
The weak worm from its lowly bed, and thou shalt hear its voice.
Come forth, worm of the silent valley, to thy pensive queen.
”
”
William Blake
“
…There is some firm place in me which knows that what happened to Wally, whatever it was, whatever it is that death is as it transliterates us, moving us out of this life into what we can’t know, is kind.
I shock myself, writing that. I know that many deaths are anything but gentle. I know people suffer terribly…I know many die abandoned, unseen, their stories unheard, their dignity violated, their human worth ignored.
I suspect that the ease of Wally’s death, the rightness of it, the loving recognition which surrounded him, all made it possible for me to see clearly, to witness what other circumstances might obscure. I know, as surely as I know anything, that he’s all right now.
And yet.
And yet he’s gone, an absence so forceful it is itself a daily hourly presence.
My experience of being with Wally… brought me to another sort of perception, but I can’t stay in that place, can’t sustain that way of seeing. The experience of knowing, somehow, that he’s all right, lifted in some kind process that turns at the heart of the world, gives way, as it must, to the plain aching fact that he’s gone.
And doubt. And the fact that we can’t understand, that it’s our condition to not know. Is that our work in the world, to learn to dwell in such not-knowing?
We need our doubt so as to not settle for easy answers. Not-knowing pushes us to struggle after meaning for ourselves…Doubt’s lesson seems to be that whatever we conclude must be provisional, open to revision, subject to correction by forces of change. Leave room, doubt says, for the unknowable, for what it will never quite be your share to see.
Stanley Kunitz says somewhere that if poetry teaches us anything, it is that we can believe two completely contradictory things at once. And so I can believe that death is utter, unbearable rupture, just as I know that death is kind.
”
”
Mark Doty (Heaven's Coast: A Memoir)
“
I’m Fine
I stand on the precipice of solitude,
A tempest raging within, unseen by all.
They depart, like autumn leaves in the wind,
Their absence a hollow echo, a fading call.
I don’t care who leaves my life,
Their footsteps erased from the sands of time. The bonds we wove, now frayed and brittle, Yet I stand resolute, unyielding, in my prime.
The pain, a searing fire, consumes my chest, Anger coils like vipers, venomous and cold. They say love is a balm, a healing touch, But what if love itself is the blade that unfolds?
I lose them, one by one, like stars in the night, Their constellations fading, swallowed by the void. Yet I cling to my essence, my fractured soul, For in this desolation, I find strength, unalloyed.
I don’t care who I lose, for they are but shadows, Their laughter, their tears, mere echoes in the gale. As long as I don’t lose myself, my core unshaken, I’ll wear this mask of indifference, my heart’s veiled tale.
So let them depart, let them fade into oblivion, I’ll stand here, battered and scarred, but alive. For I am the tempest, the flame, the unyielding force, And in this fractured existence, I’m fine
”
”
Leju Thomas
“
Серафимы
I
Резнею кровавой на время насытясь,
Устали и слуги, и доблестный витязь
И входят под своды обители Божьей,
Где теплятся свечи Господних подножий.
И с кроткой улыбкой со стен базилики
Глядят серафимов блаженные лики.
II
Палач утомленный уснул на мгновенье.
Подвешенной жертвы растет исступленье.
На дыбе трепещет избитое тело,
Медлительным пыткам не видно предела.
А там, над землею, над тьмою кромешной,
Парят серафимы с улыбкой безгрешной.
III
В глубоком «in pace», без воли и силы,
Монахиня бьется о камни могилы.
В холодную яму, где крысы и плесень,
Доносится отзвук божественных песен.
То – с гулом органа, в куреньях незримы,
«Осанна! Осанна!» поют серафимы.
The Seraphim
I
Gorged for a time with bloody slaughter,
both servants and valorous hero are weary
and enter the dome of God's dwelling,
where candles glimmer at the Master's feet,
and from the basilica's walls, with gentle smiles,
gaze the blissful faces of the Seraphim.
II
The weary executioner has dozed for an instant.
The hung victim's frenzy grows.
A beaten body quivers on the rack,
no limit to these slow tortures is seen.
But there, above the earth, above this pitch darkness,
soar the Seraphim with innocent smiles.
III
With deep "in pace" lacking strength and will,
a nun beats against the stones of a grave.
The echo of heavenly songs is heard
in that cold pit, with rats and mould.
But beyond - with the organ's roar, unseen in clouds of incense,
"Hosanna, Hosanna!" sing the Seraphim.
”
”
Мирра Лохвицкая
“
Reason says, I will beguile him with the tongue;" Love says, "Be silent. I will beguile him with the soul."
The soul says to the heart, "Go, do not laugh at me and yourself. What is there that is not his, that I may
beguile him thereby?"
He is not sorrowful and anxious and seeking oblivion that I may beguile him with wine and a heavy measure.
The arrow of his glance needs not a bow that I should beguile the shaft of his gaze with a bow.
He is not prisoner of the world, fettered to this world of earth, that I should beguile him with gold of the
kingdom of the world.
He is an angel, though in form he is a man; he is not lustful that I should beguile him with women.
Angels start away from the house wherein this form is, so how should I beguile him with such a form and likeness?
He does not take a flock of horses, since he flies on wings; his food is light, so how should I beguile him with bread?
He is not a merchant and trafficker in the market of the world that I should beguile him with enchantment of gain and loss.
He is not veiled that I should make myself out sick and utter sighs, to beguile him with lamentation.
I will bind my head and bow my head, for I have got out of hand; I will not beguile his compassion with sickness or fluttering.
Hair by hair he sees my crookedness and feigning; what’s hidden from him that I should beguile him with anything hidden.
He is not a seeker of fame, a prince addicted to poets, that I should beguile him with verses and lyrics and flowing poetry.
The glory of the unseen form is too great for me to beguile it with blessing or Paradise.
Shams-e Tabriz, who is his chosen and beloved – perchance I will beguile him with this same pole of the age.
”
”
Rumi (Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi) (Mystical Poems of Rumi)
“
CHALLENGES TO YOUNG POETS
Invent a new language anyone can understand.
Climb the Statue of Liberty.
Reach for the unattainable.
Kiss the mirror and write what you see and hear.
Dance with wolves and count the stars, including the unseen.
Be naïve, innocent, non-cynical, as if you had just landed on earth (as indeed you have, as indeed we all have), astonished by what you have fallen upon.
Write living newspaper. Be a reporter from outer space, filing dispatches to some supreme managing editor who believes in full disclosure and has a low tolerance level for hot air.
Write and endless poem about your life on earth or elsewhere.
Read between the lines of human discourse.
Avoid the provincial, go for the universal.
Think subjectively, write objectively.
Think long thoughts in short sentences.
Don't attend poetry workshops, but if you do, don't go the learn "how to" but to learn "what" (What's important to write about).
Don't bow down to critics who have not themselves written great masterpieces.
Resist much, obey less.
Secretly liberate any being you see in a cage.
Write short poems in the voice of birds. Make your lyrics truly lyrical. Birdsong is not made by machines. Give your poem wings to fly to the treetops.
The much-quoted dictum from William Carlos Williams, "No ideas but in things," is OK for prose, but it lays a dead hand on lyricism, since "things" are dead.
Don't contemplate your navel in poetry and think the rest of the world is going to think it's important.
Remember everything, forget nothing.
Work on a frontier, if you can find one.
Go to sea, or work near water, and paddle your own boat.
Associate with thinking poets. They're hard to find.
Cultivate dissidence and critical thinking. "First thought, best thought" may not make for the greatest poetry. First thought may be worst thought.
What's on your mind? What do you have in mind? Open your mouth and stop mumbling.
Don't be so open minded that your brains fall out.
Questions everything and everyone. Be subversive, constantly questioning reality and status quo.
Be a poet, not a huckster. Don't cater, don't pander, especially not to possible audiences, readers, editors, or publishers.
Come out of your closet. It's dark there.
Raise the blinds, throw open your shuttered windows, raise the roof, unscrew the locks from the doors, but don't throw away the screws.
Be committed to something outside yourself. Be militant about it. Or ecstatic.
To be a poet at sixteen is to be sixteen, to be a poet at 40 is to be a poet. Be both.
Wake up and pee, the world's on fire.
Have a nice day.
”
”
Lawrence Ferlinghetti (San Francisco Poems (San Francisco Poet Laureate Series))
“
Rare and powerful harmonies exist,
Shaping both scent and contour in a flower.
Thus brilliance lies unseen by us until,
Beneath the chisel, it blazes in the diamond.
And thus do images of fleeting vision,
Drifting above like cloud-forms in the sky,
Once turned to stone live on from age to age,
Held always in a faultless, polished phrase.
("A Sonnet To Form")
”
”
Valery Bryusov
“
Blossoms unseen so many perished in the great tsunami
”
”
Sonosuke Takahashi
“
В музиката намирам сила, слабост и болка - трите стихии,
четвъртата няма име.
Чета поети, умрели и живи, уча се от тях
на издръжливост, вяра, гордост. Опитва да разбера
великите философи - най-често успявам
да уловя само късове от скъпоценните им мисли.
”
”
Adam Zagajewski (Unseen Hand: Poems)
“
Това, което ще дойде, ще бъде невидимо
и леко.
Това, което е, все се люшка между иронията
и страха.
Това, което оцелее, ще бъде синьо
като окото на гилотината.
”
”
Adam Zagajewski (Unseen Hand: Poems)
“
This is a manifesto for the vampires unseen in mirrors, encountering themselves in camp 70s horror with a glow of recognition, always rooting for the monsters who are at least honest to themselves, at least not pretending altruism. Fallen but still loud. And the heroes all blend into one another but we remember our stories by their villains.
”
”
Brian Sonia-Wallace (The Poetry of Strangers: What I Learned Traveling America)
“
We will be stronger for this, But only if it forces us To reach out. Corona Barry Marks “…normally only visible during a solar eclipse” Of course I’m crazy there are no sharks in swimming pools, just like there were none in freshwater lakes and rivers all those years when boys and dogs and a horse or two disappeared and everyone knew it was a haint, not some biological U-Boat stalking Little Bear Creek for 400 million years. Yes, I watch for periscopes, dorsal fins, Indian signs whispering something is down there, beneath the surface tension: angle of reflection, angle of refraction, invisible geometry making you squint and not see, making you not see. Go ahead, tell me I’m crazy with my stock of masks and toilet paper, bottled water and ammo; I know this immigrant air is from Mexico, maybe Wuhan before that, and the things I can’t see are the ones trying to pry my ribs open to let the ghost-you-can’t-see out of its cage. I know things under the air, behind the darkness, within the water are real because so am I and I believe the myth of electricity and the fable of fluoridation, that the sun can be lethal and meds can mend a Stockholm Syndrome childhood. I believe my vote and my opinion count. I believe in germs and viruses, and not going out with a wet head, and the new normal and the old one, too. I believe it is the unseen things that kill us, the small things: a moment’s distraction, the hole a virus shoots through a body. I cannot believe the dead will forgive us for being too slow to believe in what we did not want to see.
”
”
Anthology Highland Avenue Eaters of Words (The Social Distance: Poetry in Response to COVID-19)
“
A Poet wrote this poem for me in 2017. Whenever I read this, I feel happy that I could touch someone deeply!
"It has not been long since he came to my life
He came like a soft wind
He made me feel like a king
He showed me who i am
He made me believe i can
No not just a simple man
A man who is so deep
Emotions feelings are in a heap
His mighty head high to keep
Though strong and hard
His heart is made of gold
Love kindness are decorated in folds
He holds the capacity of changing others
Making all the sisters and brothers
Feel that they are worthy
His words are so simple yet strong
Commanding yet soft
High pitched yet so serene
He smiles and makes the world smile
He feels the unfelt
He touches the untouched
He sees the unseen
He takes care of all without showing
He shows without pretending
His eyes sparkel with light
He is fearless no fright
He lightens up the room when he enters
And when he speaks is like a melodious symphony
That touch you deep down
He will inspire you
He will teach you
He will lend u a hand
And make u stand
He will be the eye for you to see
Thorough ur own heart
He never hopes bad for others
Neither does he bothers
About the negetivies
He is the positive man
The mighty happy soul
And if i talk about his soul
It the most beautiful soul
How can anyone feel so much?
And he has the capability of being himself
No matter what
He takes good care of others
And makes sure he is fit too
He wants smile in evryones faces
And he will make you smile
You meet him once
And here you go!
You have a changed life
Do you kno who the magic man is ?
He is the passionate writer
”
”
Poem 9670 for Avijeet Das
“
It warps reality with its unseen hold:
The colors of your world are drained out,
Bled from your mind until
All you have left is an ashy, unending gray.
You are unable to see beauty any more,
It killed all that was beautiful
And left you to flounder in the ugly abandon.
”
”
Maddy Kobar (Simply Not Meant To Be: Maddy Kobar's 2014-2018 Poems)
“
The Bridges of Marin County
harbor views back east
never so panoramic
but here
driving the folds
of mt tamalpais
the whole picture smooth
blue of the bay
set like a table
for dinner guests who seat themselves
in berkeley oakland and san jose
pass around delicate dishes
of angel island ferry boats and alcatraz
i'll save a spot for you
in san francisco spread
with your favorite dishes
don't leave me
hanging in marin
dinner at eight and everyone else
on time
you said you'd bring the wine
we waited
as long as we could
the food
went cold
witnesses said
that you stood
nearly an hour
i imagine you crossing
back and forth
leaning tower to tower
finally
choosing
the southern
your wish to rest
nearer the city
than the driveway
how long had you been letting
your two selves push each other over
the edge
stuffing your pockets
with secrets and shame
weighing yourself down
with cement shoes
a gangster assuring your own
silence
i pay the toll daily
wondering
as the dark shroud
of the bay
smoothed over you
that night
who did you think
your quiet splash
was saving
were you keeping
yourself from the pleasures
you found in the city
boys in dark bars
handsome men who loved you
did they love you too
did you wrestle with vertigo
lose your sense of balance
imagine yourself icarus
dizzied by your own precarious perch
glorious ride
on flawed wings
was it so impossible to live
and love on both sides
of the bay
did you think i couldn't feel
your love
when it was there for me
your distraction
when desires
divided
history like the water
smoothes over
with half-truth
story of good job
and grieving widow
but each time i cross
this span
i wonder
about the men
with whom i share the loss
of you
invisibly
i sit unseen in
a castro cafe
wondering which men
gave you what kinds
of comfort
delight
satisfaction
these men of leather
metal tattoos
did you know them
how did you get their attention
how did they get yours
did you walk hand-in-hand
with a man who looked like you
the marlboro man double exposed
did you bury a love of bondage
dominance submission
in the bay
did you find friendship too
would you and i have found
the same men handsome
where are you
in this cafe crowd
i want to love
what you wouldn't show
me
dance with more than
a slice of truth
hold your halves together
in my arms
and rock the till i have mourned
and honored
the whole of you
was it so impossible to
cross that divide
to live
and love
on both sides
of the bay
hey
isn't that what bridges
are for
”
”
Nancy Boutilier (On the Eighth Day Adam Slept Alone: New Poems)
“
To move in and take over cities, squirrels needed an ally to reshape their landscapes. They found that ally in Frederick Law Olmsted. Olmsted introduced the idea that cities should contain large tracts of idealized wilderness (his most famous design was New York’s Central Park). It was ideal for reading poetry in the shade or wandering with a friend, but mostly, it was ideal for being a squirrel.
”
”
Nathanael Johnson (Unseen City: The Majesty of Pigeons, the Discreet Charm of Snails & Other Wonders of the Urban Wilderness)
“
If other planets dark as earth
About dim trembling stars
Carry frail freight of death and birth,
Wild love, and endless wars;
If from far, unseen motes in flight
Life look down questioning
This helpless passage through the night
Is a less lonely thing:
”
”
Maxwell Anderson (You Who Have Dreams)
“
My identity isn't defined by what you see on a screen;
My identity is defined by a mighty Savior unseen.
”
”
Cali Willette (Fractures of Gold)
“
Poetry is like shards of meteorites falling on barren land – the shining of the secret stone unseen; the song of the vibration unheard; the fire in the ancient stone, forever burning alone.
The old mother of all is sitting under her favourite ash tree. She touches the shedding bark with her knobbly fingers and traces the wounds of unresolved shadows in strange circular patterns. She sees her children cry, their tears strange silver knobs that read like braille.
”
”
Louisa Punt-Fouché
“
Endings and Beginnings:
Wherever you may find yourself- on the edge of a sunset, on the beams of a sunrise,
Balance is knowing when to hold on, and when to let go.
What ends, be it painfully or peacefully, is just a preparation for something new;
A rebirth, the magical seeds of a fresh perspective coming forth
We are all a story of endings and beginnings; a complexion of ego and soul, love and pain, flowers and vines, fire and water, earth and air.
So don't fear what falls away.
Beyond, in unseen places from far out traces, there is something more wondrous in preparation to come your way.
Darling one,
A heartbeat, the destiny of a new beginning is far too enticing to ever fear an ending
”
”
Christine Evangelou (The Stars In Our Scars: A Collection of Unique, Healing and Inspirational Poetry)
“
Listen,the Nature has her Mystic hands pressed on us to prove the wonders or sadness in a way that we let ourselves ponder about the clueless,
yet clue giving,unseen,yet seen,uninformed,yet informed,untouched yet touched characters using our normal human mind.
”
”
Nithin Purple
“
I call him “Old Bold-Stones”
Within a ribbed structure built not unlike a cage
Yet, not having the same quality of confinement,
The open box of the day was lying
Lid unhinged to a swing of
mourning whales
all dressed in widowhoods.
Sunset's blood threw a spotted sop –
That kaleidoscope in the spout
Of the great sperm-son's vent.
Come, crash me thunderdown.
Come, flash me whipplecrack.
Wave winged
Sweat wet.
Frond weed.
Pondweed.
And as thunderdown of policemen
Shouting the empty place neath
The arches of the once-red now
Brown, grey sandstone bridge,
Trout with a suspicion of feet
lurking quiet in unseen spaces
between frond weed and bold stones.
”
”
Gordon Roddick
“
In Bastet's Thrall by Stewart Stafford
A sight unseen,
Eyes of feline green,
Make me do their bidding.
That whiskered mask,
In adulation basks,
Affection makes a killing.
Great but small,
In Bastet's thrall,
It dares me with a licking.
In regal fur,
A seductive purr,
And tail brazenly quitting.
© Stewart Stafford, 2021. All rights reserved.
”
”
Stewart Stafford
“
without changing color
in the emptiness
of this world of ours,
the heart of man
fades like a flower.
Tsurayuki identifies two powers of poetry I do not find in Komachi's extant poems.
Both relate to the higher realm of the gods and goddesses, and again I do not find this subject matter in her poems.
He cites poems 'Moving heaven and earth' and 'Waking the feelings of unseen gods and spirits'.
In fact, Komachi expresses a view that seems to be nihilistic.
”
”
Poets Unite Worldwide (Moments of Lightness: Haiku & Tanka)
“
Once,
I did hear him,
he did wash the world,
unseen, nightlong,
real.
One and unending,
annihilated,
I'ed.
Light was. Salvation
”
”
Paul Celan (Breathturn into Timestead: The Collected Later Poetry)
“
She must have been kicked unseen or brushed by a car.
Too young to know much, she was beginning to learn
To use the newspapers spread on the kitchen floor
And to win, wetting there, the words, “Good dog! Good dog!”
We thought her shy malaise was a shot reaction.
The autopsy disclosed a rupture in her liver.
As we teased her with play, blood was filling her skin
And her heart was learning to lie down forever.
Monday morning, as the children were noisily fed
And sent to school, she crawled beneath my youngest’s bed.
We found her twisted limp but still alive.
In the car to the vet’s, on my lap, she tried
To bite my hand and died. I stroked her warm fur
And my wife called in a voice imperious with tears.
Though surrounded by love that would have upheld her,
Nevertheless she sank and, stiffening, disappeared.
Back home, we found that in the night her frame,
Drawing near to dissolution, had endured the shame
Of diarrhea and had dragged across the floor
To a newspaper carelessly left there. Good dog.
- John Updike, ‘Dog’s Death
”
”
Joseph Duemer (Dog Music: Poetry About Dogs)
“
Young lady, there are many ways to tell something besides using speech. You tell me more by wrapping your arms around your knees than you ever could with the most eloquent words. You speak a thousand carefully penned lines of heartbreaking poetry with your eyes alone. A single innocent tear straying down your cheek is worth a flood of explanation.
”
”
Luke Alistar (The Unseen)
“
When did we revert back to sticks and shields,
Uniform uniforms, stylized agenda reveals,
Hiding behind glass with nods to our reflection,
Blocking out the light that sparked the deception?
Who do we see staring across the isle,
A path once for feet now stretched into miles,
Removed from our view to a place unseen,
Forcing poisonous venom through a flickering screen?
Where should we gather outside of the homes,
But a place for the masses to manifest from their phones,
The hatred and evil broadcasting the waves,
Telling you daily, “Elvis lives and Jesus saves”?
What could restart a flawed mental state,
Built on cause and guilt for an unfulfilled faith
In policy, redemption, a nation self aware,
Our values compressed and trapped in despair?
How can we rise with the odds in their favor,
Sedated once more, still waiting for a Savior
Willing to spare from thoughts profound?
Stand tall, my friends, when the fool comes around.
”
”
Ross Caligiuri
“
Unseen in their flight,
wild geese faintly call,
passing high overhead,
in the depths of night.
Instinctive travelers,
on invisible highways.
I envy their lack of lostness.
”
”
John Mark Green (Taste the Wild Wonder: Poems)
“
Flowers Born to Fill the Dessert Air!
They thought
The flower was
Born to
Blush unseen.
And waste its
Sweetness
In the
Dessert air.
But the
Destiny of
The flower
Unknown to them.
Was
A different story,
To be known
In time.
The rains
Poured down
And the
Dessert bloomed.
Bringing
Travelers from
Far and wide.
To walk through
The dessert,
Now
Full of flowers.
To sooth
The tired souls,
To inhale the
Pure sweetness
And, to see the
Beautiful flower
Blushing,
In the sweet dessert air!
”
”
Deepa Nilamani
“
The Cricket and the Grasshopper
The senseless leaf in the fevered hand
Grows hot, near blood-heat, but never grows
Green. Weeks ago the dove’s last cooing strain
Settled silent in the nest to brood slow
Absence from song. The dropped leaf cools
On the uncut grass, supple still, still green,
Twining still these fingers as they listless pull
The tangle straight until the tangle tightens
And the hand is caught, another fallen leaf.
The poetry of the earth never ceases
Ceasing — one blade of grass denies belief
Until its mere thread bears the grasshopper’s
Whole weight, and the black cricket sings unseen,
Desire living in a hole beneath the tangle’s green.
”
”
Dan Beachy-Quick
“
My heart yields dividends unseen; thou art my soul's annuity.
”
”
Catherynne M. Valente (The Future Is Blue)
“
BUNAHAN
When the last speaker of Boro
falls silent,
who will notice
the first-grown feather
of a bird’s wing? (gansuthi)
or feel how far pretending
to love (onsay) is
from loving
for the last time (onsra)?
Quiet and uneasy, in an
unfamiliar place (asusu)
no one sees her, or listens;
there is less of her
than there was.
The last speaker feels
Boro’s world fall apart,
knowledge unravels:
healing plants go
unseen; the bodies of animals
are unreadable.
With a last thought, onguboy
(to love it all, from the heart),
she leaves fragments
of the world she held in place.
We touch their husks,
about to speak and
about not to speak
(bunhan, bunahan);
awash in loss,
incomplete.
Note:
The italicized words are from Boro, an endangered language still spoken in parts of northern India. For more on this story, see Mark Abley’s Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages.
”
”
Laurelyn Whitt
“
o guard him, guard him well, my Giotto's tower, Let some young Florentine each eventide Bring coronals of that enchanted flower Which the dim woods of Vallombrosa hide, And deck the marble tomb wherein he lies Whose soul is as some mighty orb unseen of mortal eyes.
”
”
Oscar Wilde (Humanitad)
“
Ah thrills of my soul is not yet perished,for a flame aglow its spirit of thoughts,and my words will garland the most admired beauty of both seen and the unseen hearts.
”
”
Nithin Purple (Venus and Crepuscule)
“
Find me where the crowd is less, the sky is blue, and the wind is free. Find me in the midst of the forgotten; the abandoned. To the one who seeks my presence, find me in the company of the unseen.
”
”
Abdulsamad S.M. (being human)
“
We don't jump, intentional.
Shuffle, unsure.
We don't confidently strut
or crawl in despair.
We're not dropped
by some unseen hand,
we don't squeeze in
or glide with grace.
We don't sprint (even when
some might claim we're rushing).
And we don't soar heavenward.
We fall.
Tumbling head over heels...
”
”
Joy McCullough (Enter the Body)
“
Life slings its arrows, some may pierce,
but you'll rise with the sun.
Like a willow that bends,
you'll weather the storm.
Bruised petals heal, foundations rebuild,
and unseen paths unfold.
Within us lies the strength of towering redwoods,
unwavering and renewed with each passing season.
”
”
Monika Ajay Kaul